Darren Charles Barnet was born on April 27, 1991, in Los Angeles.[5][6] His mother is Swedish of Japanese ancestry, while his father is American of German and Cherokee descent.[7][8] Barnet's grandfather was swing musician Charlie Barnet.[8] He has an older and a younger sister.[6]
After graduating in 2013, Barnet returned to Los Angeles to become an actor. He worked at SoulCycle on Sunset Boulevard as a bike attendant and front desk associate.[6] He got his California real estate license in May 2015.[6] He made his acting debut in 2017.[citation needed]
In April 2020, Barnet began starring in the Netflix teencomedy-drama streaming television series Never Have I Ever, as Paxton Hall-Yoshida, the crush of Devi Vishwakumar, the show's lead character, played by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan.[7] Media noted the nearly 11-year age difference between Barnet and Ramakrishnan, with Barnet aged 29 at the beginning of the show.[25] Co-creator Lang Fisher talked about Barnet and the audition process: "Darren was so good at the swoon-y stuff-being an aloof, cool guy-but he was actually very good at the comedy stuff in his audition, too." She continued, "You can't ask someone how old they are when they audition. You just have to assume that they're a reasonable age. I don't think we found out what his age was until we were deep in the season and then we were like, 'Oh, OK.' I assumed he was, like, 20. And the other thing I will say, when you see an actual 15-year-old boy, they're just not going to be a heartthrob. They look like a tiny baby."[26] Both Never Have I Ever and Barnet's performance received positive reviews, with Netflix reporting that the series had been viewed by 40 million households globally since its release.[27][28] The following month, he appeared in a brief role as character Wilfred "Freddy" Malick in the seventh season of ABC and Marvel's television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.[29][21] Later that year, Barnet starred in Universal Pictures' direct-to-video sex comedy film American Pie Presents: Girls' Rules.[30]
